“He only escaped one by a hair’s breadth, too. When we came to a stop, there wasn’t more than two or three fathoms between us and the other craft.”
“A narrow shave, eh?”
“Yes. By this time I had been roused by the blowing of our whistle, and I went on deck, half-dressed. There are no ladies on board the Harkaway. And I made my appearance just in time to see the amidships turret of the stranger thrown open and half a dozen men appear on her deck.”
“Your captain’s first idea was anger at the stranger, I suppose?”
“Naturally; and he told them what he thought of their carelessness in the choicest sort of phrase, but they paid no more attention to him than you would to a honey-bee; and the next thing we knew was that we had drifted alongside, and the stranger had made fast to us.
“You see, Mr. Carter, it was all done so quickly and so deftly, and was so totally unexpected, that we had no time to prevent it, even if we had been on our guard after the first discovery of the pirate; and we had no sooner touched and they had their lines fast, than half a dozen of their men leaped aboard of us.”
“Were they masked?” asked Kane.
“Yes, masked, and armed, too, with rifles. They covered the whole lot of us in a jiffy; and more than that, their captain, who now appeared on the deck of the pirate, sang out to us, and at the same time pointed at his amidships turret—the one I mentioned a moment ago.
“Say, Kane, I’ll give you my word that I thought then that the whole thing was a huge joke of some sort that somebody was attempting to play on me. It looked like a scene out of a melodrama, or an opera. It’s a wonder I didn’t laugh; only I was too angry to do that, you know.”
“Tell me about it,” said Nick.